James Was Right

This is mostly true, juiced a little to make it a tad more interesting. It's based on some real conversations, and what happened later; many liberties have been taken and timelines tweaked, but essentially autobiographical.

There's not a lot of explicit sex in this telling. It's mainly a reminiscence.

James was sitting at his table, looking very mellow, and not all that much different from the last time I'd seen him, a tad over ten years earlier. He was tall, even sitting, and he was enjoying a cigarette, something I'd forgotten.

I sat beside him, casually. He looked at me, inclining his head by way of greeting; it did not appear he recognized me.

"Hi, James," I said.

His eyes narrowed and focused on me; then, a grin broke out as he said, "Jeff, my man. How you been?" His rich bass voice was so comfortable, so familiar.

"Good," I said. "Main reason I came over here was to tell you something."

"Zat?" he asked, not seeming to care.

"You were right," I replied simply.

His eyes narrowed again; he inhaled from the cigarette, ciphering, thinking, knowing there was something he should know.

Finally it hit him. He chuckled, spewing little plumes of smoke as he did. He stubbed out the butt as he said, "I told you. You white boys all alike."

++++++

James and I attended the same high school, a consolidated affair servicing three small cities and their various suburbs (using the term loosely). I'd attended junior high in one town, he in another.

We'd not met right away, of course: we were culturally and academically divided, as I hung our with the white science-and-math crowd, and he kept with the slightly more diverse cluster of jocks. Integration was only a few years old, but our school seemed to ride out that storm pretty well. The few unfortunate incidents failed to prevent the student body from melding.

James and I shared one class as freshmen, and none as sophomores. It was during the summer before junior year that we became better acquainted.

My dad had been on me since late the previous school year to find summer employment. He was insistent I begin to pull some of my own weight; not that he'd have tossed me out, but he was trying to instill a work ethic.

My mother, through some contacts at her work, lined up an interview with the owner of a fast-food place, Tastee Burger. It was a DQ knock-off of sorts, in the years before McD and BK and Wendy swarmed the landscape, a time when a local, privately-owned business could do quite well, thank you, with no franchise assistance.

The owner was Lee Davis, a surprisingly short, thick man, a Marine veteran of the Korean War. He offered me a position that would put me behind the grill most evenings, at least during the summer travel season, and likely the occasional weekend day shift. I told him that would be just fine: I allowed how I'd been raised by people who loved to cook, and it had rubbed off on me, at least a little.

He was soft-spoken when we met, very polite and attentive, and as I discovered in the weeks that followed, perfectly capable of making R Lee Ermey sound like a Sunday School teacher (but that had nothing to do with this tale).

I reported for work on a Thursday afternoon, a few minutes before four p.m. I was greeted by two girls, Cathy and Edith, students in my school who had a fairly low opinion of me, and David, a twenty-one year old who was the evening manager.

"So I see you know these two," said David, thumbing toward the girls; they'd been giving me some shit, of a nature that indicated familiarity. "Now we need to wait for Widu," he continued, looking at his watch.

About that time the back door opened, and James walked in. "'Bout damn time," David said, grinning.

James looked at me and said, "Oh, you the new guy.'

David said, "Okay, I guess you know everyone, then. How come no one told me?" His grousing, I would come to find, was good-natured unless it wasn't, and you could tell when it wasn't.

There was a lull in the action, the late-late lunch crowd having evaporated and the dinner mob not yet hungry, or at least not yet passing through our town. David introduced me to all the food stations, and then turned me over to James for Advanced Grill Studies.

The cooking part wasn't that tough. The hard parts were the terminology (an all-the-way vs a no-onions, and that applied to hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and hot dogs) and the logistics (how to make a Biggie Burger, a more complex operation; where the pre-cut items were located in the walk-in cooler).

I had memorized things pretty well when the early dinner session started; forty five minutes later, ahead of the big crunch, while we were cleaning up and re-stocking, David allowed as how I had done a pretty good job for a first-nighter.

The next few waves of diners came and went. By the end of the evening, I was bushed, but happy.

++++++

The next days and weeks were more of the same. I learned my way around well enough, and got to know my co-workers (there were others besides the first night crowd). David, it turned out, was married with a baby on the way; Widu, James explained when I asked, was his notion of an African king's name.

As the others became more settled with me in their midst, I was included in some of their conversations; at times they went beyond general and conversational to bawdy, and then to blue.

One evening, I was on with James, Cathy, Denise (a rather shy girl, at least at first blush) and David. There was a prolonged lull in business, and he took the opportunity to talk about his sex life with his wife. He spared few details of what they did; while girls these days would file sexual harassment complaints, Cathy and Denise were actually egging him on.

"We were watching TV last night," he said, "and this really big-tittied woman was on. I looked at my wife and said, 'I bet her pussy would be some good eating.'"

There was laughter all around. Denise said, "You did NOT say that to your wife!"

"I did, too," David retorted, looking mortally offended.

"And she'd let you go down on some other woman?" Cathy laughed.

"Well, I didn't say that," he replied sheepishly.

"She'd smack the shit out of you, is what you mean," Cathy giggled.

James was sitting there, enigmatic grin pasted to his lips, shaking his head. "Mmm-mmm," he grunted.

There were some catcalls. He shook his head again, and said, "You white girls tricked these boys into stickin' they tongue where it don't belong. Nasty."

More laughter; then, David said, "A woman's pussy is cleaner than under your fingernails. Babies have to come out of there, so you know it's gotta be clean." David did NOT have an M.D., though I thought his reasoning was probably fairly sound.

"I have to go with James on this," I said. I wasn't much for joining these conversations, but I felt compelled. "I don't think I could do that."

I was jeered a little; but what could the girls do? Offer me a chance to prove it?

There was a little bit of spirited debate, cut short when a church bus pulled up outside. It was back to busy.

++++++

I worked at Tastee Burger for the next two years. The crew complement came and went, with David, James, Cathy and me being the only really constant threads.

The conversations continued to run toward the bawdy, but they toned down over time. Cathy and I actually began to get along; James and I were never going to be friends as such, but we were passable allies. I even gave him a ride home a few times, a fair stretch out of the way.

At the end of that summer, just before I went off to college, Lee announced he had sold the place. He was assuming ownership of a newer, fancier restaurant, taking David with him as manager. All of us were welcome to stay, said the new owners; but for the three of us students, we were all leaving in a few weeks anyway.

Still, it was sad to break up what had become a surrogate family.

++++++

It was in college that I finally began to experiment with sex. In high school I'd been too cloistered, a naïf too concerned with studying, as well as the possible repercussions of sexual activity, to explore anything beyond self-gratification

That changed when I was a second-semester freshman. I was studying accounting; my roomie, Bill, was a sports administration major, code for football jock. We got on well, believe it or not.

One Saturday evening after Spring break, he announced I was going to accompany him to a frat party. He'd talked one of his friends into lining up a date for me, a girl, he was told, a virgin who was sorta geeky, sorta like me.

I sighed and capitulated.

We got to the frat house; I met his friend, who told me I'd never regret that night. "In fact," he said, sales pitch over, "turn around."

I obeyed, and looked right at Cathy.

When she saw me, she blushed furiously, most likely matching me. Our friends, hers and mine, took our mutual silence as confirmation we were two innocents in need of one another. We were ushered onto the patio to make small talk and plan our "getting it on."

Well, we stood around, that's for certain. It was a full minute before I said, "Look, Cathy, this was not my idea."

"Yeah, I know," she said, not looking at me, not directly. "We were sort of..."

"Set up?" I finished.

"Yeah," she sighed.

We sat, and began making small talk. Finally, I said, "Listen, I don't want to embarrass you. We can just leave if you want."

"Yeah, I think we should," she replied.

I gave her a quick hug, which she reciprocated; then we left, unnoticed, and made our separate ways back home.

++++++

The next Friday evening, I was all alone in my dorm room. The door was ajar; the dorm was pretty empty, so the noise was at a minimum, and I'd opened the window to get some cross-breeze of fresh spring air. I heard a small tapping on the doorjamb.

I turned and saw Cathy. Déjà vu...

"Hi," she said simply.

I stood. "Hi, yourself. Come on in."

She entered the room and sat, and I opened the door a little wider, instinctively protecting both of us.

We began making small talk. At length she looked around a trifle theatrically, and asked, "So where's Sasquatch?"

I laughed. Cathy wasn't into sports. "He's at an away wrestling match. It starts tomorrow morning, so the team left around lunch today.

She frowned. "I thought he was a football player."

"And wrestling, and golf if you can believe it. Your all-round sports junkie," I replied.

We chuckled at that. There was an awkward pause, and I asked, "So, what brings you to these parts?"

She hemmed and hawed, and then said, "I wanted to see you.'

My eyebrows almost went into orbit. "Me?"

She laughed. "Yeah, you. I mean, I'd been needing to see a friendly face, and last weekend was, well, sorta nice."

I hesitated perhaps a beat too long. She said, "Sure you don't mind me being here?"

"No, no, it's great, great, really. It's just..."

"What?" she asked after a moment, when I didn't finish.

"It's not quite computing. I always thought you hated me. Well, maybe not hate, but... I just... see, I always had a little tiny crush on you. At least, until we started at TB."

We both giggled. TB was our inside joke for the burger place, a reference to how bad the food was, even though it was not.

"Yeah," she said after a moment, "I had a little crush on you, too."

I stared at her for a moment. "So why...?"

She was silent for a moment. "I dunno," she answered at length. "I guess I thought you had another girlfriend, or didn't like me, or whatever."

There was a silence; then I said, "So you mean we waited all these years to have this talk because..."

"Yeah," she said, pursing her lips. "Because we were the stupidest smart kids in the world."

I couldn't hold in the laughter. It rolled out, pouring like a dam burst. She joined me in the mirth, and then I did something I never, ever thought I'd do.

I leaned over and kissed her.

As kisses go, it was pretty bad. Even by the standard of first kisses, it was pretty lousy. To me, though, it was bliss. She seemed to think so, too, judging from her reaction.

We apparently used our entire repertoire of book-learning about romance that evening. We kissed and touched and fondled, remembering to close the door first (of course).

We ended up naked, as you might imagine, running hands over body parts, adrenaline levels rising, pupils dilating, the whole enchilada; Cathy called a halt to the proceedings long enough to say, "Look, I don't really want to get pregnant, so, as much fun as we're having..."

I nodded. "Yeah," I croaked, "I was just before getting too far along."

We sat back from one another, naked, making no particular effort to cover up. As we gazed at one another, eyes locking, then wandering over interesting parts, then coming back together, I finally said, "Cathy, you look... well, amazing."

She rolled her eyes, but grinned. "I'm fat and my boobs droop."

"You're not fat," I said, reaching over, gently tweaking her left nipple, "and I'm particularly fond of your breasts. They look great to me."

"Probably 'cause they're the only ones you've ever seen," she quipped, still grinning.

I laughed. "True enough, but damn, girl," I took her entire left breast in my hand and gently squeezed, "this feels amazingly good."

She blushed furiously at that, but made no move to push my hand away. "Thank you," she said simply.

We kissed again; she broke the kiss, and said, "You know, I remember once accusing you of something."

I frowned. "What was that?"

"Well," she said, re-situating herself, "remember that time James talked about white guys eating pussy?"

I remembered. "Yeah," I said, chuckling a little.

"I remember saying you wouldn't know what to do with it, where to find it, some smart-ass shit like that," she continued.

A bulb went off. "I remember that night," I said. "I wanted to throttle you."

We both giggled, and fell silent; she gazed at me, and as the light dawned on me, I said, "You want me to eat your pussy?"

Her eyes twinkled. "Want to try?"

"Oh, hail yeah!" I exclaimed.

"So what happened to the never-gonna-eat-pussy attitude?" she taunted.

"I'm sitting here, looking at my girlfriend, naked, offering to let me go down on her, and I'm going to refuse that?" I finished with a flourish.

She laughed again. "So now I'm your girlfriend, huh?"

"Oh, kiss my butt," I said.

She hopped up off the bed. "I need to go freshen up first. I mean, I took a shower this morning, but, well... I'm a little self-conscious."

"Down the hall, on the right," I answered. "And here," I added, "don't get dressed, take my bathrobe." I handed it to her.

"Oh, great," she said. She leaned over to kiss me lightly. "Back in a flash, *boyfriend*!"

We both chuckled; she slipped out the door, closing it behind her.

She returned a few minutes later, slipping in without knocking; she stood before me, shed the robe, and said, "Now, you really want to do this?"

I was sitting on the bed. I reached up, took her hand, and pulled her to me. "I've not wanted anything this much in my life."

She fell on top of me, our lips locking in a sensuous kiss.

I won't detail the events of the next hour; I'll only say they were the defining moment of my sexual life.

I loved the sensations of eating Cathy's pussy, the taste, the scent, the feel, the response, the experience.

I'd found some wet-wipes, the kind KFC includes with their meals, I'd stashed in my desk; with them, I attempted to make my genitals pleasant, or at least less offensive.

Cathy seemed to appreciate that effort, as she made very satisfied noises giving me the first blow job of my young life.

Would that it could have lasted; but that evening had to end.

++++++

Cathy and I saw one another fairly regularly after that, for a couple of years. We eventually progressed to coitus, as she went on the pill and wanted her pussy to accept what her mouth so loved; then things just faded away, and I haven't seen her in most of thirty years.

Along the way, I met and bedded a few young women; most never went beyond the oral stage, fine with me, although occasionally I ended up in some serious sexual escapades.

Seven years after Cathy and I became lovers, I met Nonnie; we married, and attended my ten-year high school reunion a couple of years later.

We sat at a table with some friends. Cathy was not in attendance, I noted; but during a lull in the festivities, I saw James, his 'fro shorn into a style far more commonplace in the 80s.

I stood, bussed Nonnie on the cheek, and said, "Be right back. I have to tell an old friend he was right."